Duke Nukem Forever Preview (2002)

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Duke Nukem Forever is destined to become the fourth official game of the Duke Nukem saga.
The gaming world was introduced to the Alien Ass Kicker through Duke Nukem the game. That game and Duke Nukem 2 were sidescrolling - platform games. The game that made history however, was the third installment, Duke Nukem 3D, which was a First Person Shooter. Duke Nukem 3D together with Quake and Doom make up the holy trinity of FPS games, responsible for the extreme popularity of the genre.
These three Duke titles are the only official games, even though some console titles did surface after the success of Duke Nukem 3D.

Duke Nukem 3D was released in early Jan. 1996 (shareware only, with the full game releases in May). Duke's signature phrase, "Come get some," was exactly what game players did, propelling Duke to the number one seller status for several months in a row, and number two for 1996, behind Warcraft.

Duke Nukem 3D not only sold well, it was praised by press and players alike for setting new standards in interactivity, level design (realistic environments), cool weapons, innovative inventory items, game humor, level editor (the first to be including with a first-person shooter), multiplayer "DukeMatch" fun, and most of all for the attitude-busting, non-PC character of Duke himself, including his direct-to-the-point comments heard throughout the game. Duke Nukem became an overnight star.

The Engine
The Build engine, upon which Duke Nukem 3D was constructed, went on to become the most successful engine in terms of number of games released, a record still maintained at the date of this writing (May, 1999), with 12 published games. Notable games developed using the Build engine include Witchaven, TekWar, Shadow Warrior, Blood, PowerSlave and Redneck Rampage.

The Duke Nukem games were developed by Texas based 3D Realms, whose other titles include Shadow Warrior and Rise of the Triad as well as Max Payne (developed in partnership with Remedy Entertainment).
Duke Nukem Forever will be the first Duke title published by Take Two Interactive, who acquired the rights by purchasing Gathering of Developers, who had bought the rights from Infogrames who in turn had them by buying GT Interactive and so on and so forth....

Press on the download tab above in order to access all available Duke Nukem Forever media files...

[[Duke The Man]]

Duke doesn't talk much, unless you count his smart - ass comments as speech, he is too busy kicking Alien Butt to speak. In a recent interview to MegaGames.com he insisted that we should mention that "My name is not spelled Nuke'em!"

The Duke Portfolio

When asked to comment about his work this is what he said:

Duke Nukem (My first game and kinda cool, but pretty lame by today's standards)
Cosmo (I was in a secret area, just chillin' after saving the world again and some creepy little green dude came in and disturbed me. Good thing I had stuff to do, or I would have kicked his ass.)
Duke Nukem II (Still kinda lame, but getting better)
Duke Nukem 3D (Damn... I'm lookin' good)
Death Rally (It's great to get out there and run over people)
Balls of Steel (Play my table and get your hands on my balls)
Duke Nukem 64 (The N64 people needed to kick ass like the PC people)
Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (The N64 people needed their own original game)
Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown PSX (We can't leave out the PSX ass kicking folks)
Duke Nukem: Time to Kill PSX (Even more PSX ass kicking!)
Duke Nukem: Planet of the Babes PSX (About time we had a game all about babes!)
Duke Nukem Forever (The pinnacle of ass kicking - at least until my next game after that)

Education/Career

Duke says, "After saving the world yet again, I did run for President of the United States in 1996. I got cheated out by those Alien Bastards, though. Some of my other career highlights were writing my book, "Why I'm So Great", as well as making an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show. However, I was swiped by some Alien Bastards right off the set of the show, so that pissed me off, and I had to go kick their asses. The Oprah people were cool enough to release a picture of me when I was on the show (actually I threatened to kick their asses too). I also recorded an album called "Duke In Love", as well as having released a rather extensive line of merchandise."

Hobbies

"When I'm not saving the planet from alien invasions, I like to kick back and play some pinball. Balls of Steel is awesome (that might have something to do with the fact that I'm in it!)

I also like watching action flicks. Arnold's stuff is pretty cool, but he's getting old. I think it's time I took over as the new action movie star. I also dig "Army of Darkness", and anything with naked chicks."

-Favorite Sports Team
"Oakland Raiders, but only cause Howie Long played for them and he kinda looks like me, only
less cool."

-Favorite Computer Games
"I'm too busy saving the world and scoring with chicks to play games. But if I gotta play one, I guess it's gonna be anything with me in it."

-Favorite Quote
"It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all outta gum!"

[[The Game]]

Duke Nukem Forever was originally the title of a side-scrolling Duke game being developed in Australia that was later scrapped. The DNF under development though, takes place in Las Vegas and all over Nevada. Duke's arch enemy in the game is Dr. Proton, a 7'6" (really tall) cyborg who also appeared in the first Duke Nukem game. Dr. Proton has taken over Area 51 and nuked Las Vegas. His plan also involves the use of the spaceship contained in Area 51 in order to contact and recruit aliens from all over the galaxy, Yes he is creating the ultimate Alien Fighting Machine. Dr. Proton has also reanimated the Area 51 guards, given them bionic enhancements and made them his goons. With all these forces at his disposal, Dr. Proton plans to take over the world and in order to do that he will have to kill Duke.

Features

-Duke Nukem Forever will focus on interactivity and is expected to be much more player friendly than Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior. Duke's smart-ass remarks per second are expected to break all known records. Sources tell us that coming up with the remarks is the real reason for the game's delay.
-Duke will drive a Harley, a Humvee and a jet ski. He will also, in some yet unknown way, be able to control a jet fighter.
-Now that the Unreal Engine is onboard, locations such as Area 51, the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, the Las Vegas strip, and Morningwood, Arizona are expected to be extremely impressive.
-A woman character named Bombshell is going to debut in DNF, she had originally been cast as the lead in a 3D Realms 3D shooter which never saw the light of day. She will originally be Dr. Proton's sidekick, but will eventually be taken in by Duke's charm, even though Bombshell seems to be the only woman not attracted to Duke. Duke naturally assumes that she is a lesbian. Whether she actually is a lesbian is a well kept 3D Realms secret. Bombshell may be offered as a choice in multi-player games.
-Duke will meet an old miner named Gus in Morningwood, Arizona, a small mining town. It is unclear what exactly Gus will do for Duke, although his choice of partner is none of our business. COME ON look at his sunglasses, he looks like the star of the next George Michael video.
-Duke will fly, no the drugs won't finally get to him he will most likely achieve flight through the use of a jetpack.
-There will be a "use" key.
-This installment will see the return of the infamous Pig Cops.
-The game will feature strippers, 3D Realms have spent an extensive part of their budget, resources and man-hours researching the subject in order to provide full realism.
-Duke Nukem Forever will probably ship with an enhanced version of UnrealEd.

[[DNF Stuff]]

The Delay

The release of Duke Nukem Forever has been through many stages. Before 3D Realms announced that they would switch to the Quake2 engine in December 1997, 95% of 3D their resources were focused on Shadow Warrior. Then on June 15, 1998 they announced "Duke Nukem 3D, will now be built around Epic MegaGames' highly praised Unreal technology...". 3D Realms also had to add features to the engine and redo everything including maps and meshes. Only textures remained unchanged.
When questioned about the apparent delay George Broussard, project leader for Duke Nukem Forever had this to say, "The fact is that we're not massively delayed. Going to Unreal did set us back, but mainly because we refused to be a TC and not advance tech. We added LOD, skeletal animation, motion capture, and tons of other little enhancements to the Unreal engine to make it more interactive. That all takes time."
Level designer Stephen Cole also adds, "If DNF was a TC, it would be done by now. Levels, art, models, all are easy and quick to produce. If you want a rehashed TC, that is. If, however, you want something you haven't seen before, it takes time. If you want something that won't be outdated when it comes out, it takes more time."
It is therefore, a wise move from 3D Realms to have no official, or even, projected release date for DNF. Their message reads "Duke Nukem Forever will be out when it's done".

Add-Ons

3D Realms will not produce any add-ons for DNF themselves, since they want to remain focused on their next project. George Broussard in January 1999 said, "There will likely be several add-ons for DNF. I doubt 3DR will be doing any directly because we want to immediately jump into a new game. But we will monitor and enforce the quality of the add-ons for DNF, and make sure they are better than the ones done for Duke 3D. We'll know more when we get closer to the release of the game."

XBox and Other Consoles
A big question all Duke fans have is whether Duke Nukem Forever will be released for the next generation consoles. According to 3D Realms Duke Nukem Forever will initially be released for the Windows platform. A Mac version will eventually see the light of day. Plans of pursuong a console career for DNF are not yet determined but as Scott Miller said in October, 2000 "it would be crazy not to do that (an XBox version), in fact, simply because it's so easy to make an Xbox version once you've got a PC version."
It is however, premature to predict what other formats of DNF will become available. Some rumours suggest that the game will also be released in DVD. It is safe to say that all systems, whose hardware can support the game, will eventually get a version of Duke Nukem Forever.

Duke Forever was slated to be the biggest game ever made. Better than the original and yet true to its roots. Yet with games such as Serious Sam, which bring back the true meaning of FPS, Duke Forever seems like a dream all but forgotten. I was more excited about Duke Nukem Forever than I was about going to college. 3DRealms You screwed up. The graphics are old, Unreal Tourny graphics are aged, Either you have something you're not telling or you just messed up big. Duke is dead. Everyone in the world has waited patiantly for many months to "Come get Some." But now everyone has grown up and moved on. Eat a fat one 3DRealm.

Im with Big D, Even if it came out tomorrow, Im at the point that id rather boycott the game than play it after all the waiting and bull thats come from 3DRealms. And to so c**ky as to say "When Its Out". well when its out ill buy the game next to it just out of spite. *****.

ok dokey.im a pready big duke fan and its the >>only<< FPS that ever impressed me.the consel games did relly impress me due to some of them being just perverted(hell,i dont mind a few stripers here and thre but not like in land of babes).Duke 3D was the best game iv ever played.The graphix arnt as prettey as you would like so why wont you all go crawl in a corner and flood your house of trears.OR you can live with it and find out how far the game fgot from Duke 3D.HELL,COME ON MAN you get to dive boats with machine guns and space ships and cool wepons,big octibrans and you can wach people just walking along then when then suddenly all thes tenticals rush out of there bodey and blood fly evreywer and they attack you and,geez.just wach the video in the downlodes.i think this wont be the moast butifully grapixed game but it will be pretey darn good.wouldent you say?

While I am certain that the UT 3d engine is ever evolving (just look at the next up and coming games based on it such as Unreal II, Unreal Championship for Xbox, and yes Duke Nukem Forever), The engine build that 3d Realms is using is based largely off of the build used in Unreal Tournament. I will think about buying this game only when it proves itself worthy and it will have very tough competition in the near future. By the way RedDaemon, Soldier of Fortune was created using a modified Quake 2 engine, not an Unreal engine. One last thing, timing is key to releasing games just like releasing movies so 3d Realms will likely release when they won't have to compete with a more worthy opponent.

I laugh at all your sour people.....why? let me tell ya:3DRealms is making a game which they want to be the best ever done. That takes alot, I mean ALOT of time.I know from 3DRealms themselves that the game at the moment only uses 5% of the origional Unreal Engine, at the time these pics where taken they used more than 80% of the unreal engine, that means it looks very different now.The unreal engine still looks great comparing to RTCW and Mohaa, its not better **** its still great, besides Looks arent very important 3DRealms is wise to take more time for gamplay, it will just make the experience better.Further more, it was not very wise of them to switch so many engines, they could just have realesed it and bring a new Duke game at this moment, **** well they made a choice not to.in short Duke will still rock the world **** you just have to stop waiting, get on with your life and one day you'll find DNF in the stores and say hey, thats the game they where building all those years, man I think it's cool.waiting for a game will always disapoint you.note: I think DNF will have a Ghost release:) just wait and see DNF will be extreemly populair

You want to know why some people are not patient any more when it comes to DNF? The following is from a November 1997 issue of PC Gamer:"1) Many engines were considered for it, including the Unreal engine, but the Quake2 engine was picked up because it was the only one ready to work.2) It claimed DNF to be "in an advanced stage of work".3) It reported some words from Scott Miller's press release of April 1997, saying they didn't use the Prey engine to have it done sooner than the end of 1998.4) It reported this quote from George: "We thought to convert the Quake2 engine to 16 bit to avoid problems with the colors, but since DNF will come out in mid-1998, we believe that computers will have evolved enough to grant a good speed of action."5) It reported this other quote from George: "We're not fortune tellers, but we can expect DNF to be one of the most important games of 1998."6) In the Duke history section, 1998 is mentioned again as the release date of DNF."This is why I say that 3DRealms should have waited a while before talking about DNF. It was going to be released in late 1998. Oops!!!

n e one actually count here?? ur all sayin y does it take '6' years to make a game statin the year '99? to me that makes 3 years to 2002, dont play it if u dont want to, i know i will be, games arnt just about graphics u know!

Hey Bailey,Try reading what ppl write before popping off that ppl can't count. Here is what the guy wrote about it being six years since Duke 3d."Too little, too late..I was psyched to hear that this game was being made.. back in 99!gee, its only what.. 6 years later... sence duke3d, which is still by far the best fps out there... its still fun... a lot of fun"See, he said 6 years since Duke3d so maybe it is that you cannot read. By the way you are not playing DNF now and you are in here writing about it. Now doesn't that just say something?

Damb When d hell is this Phile of Dudeness Comming out.. like i saw sum ***** in a anchient mag.... When its done it says I JUST WANNA PLAY IT(this probably meens its **** or FUKIN lush) well im gunna play the original 16 color on my amstrad L8R ****'s

I'm giving up like the name says this game is taking FOREVER TO MAKE, so I think we will have quake 4 before DUKE to, well I guess we all have to play quake 3 arena and later this year doom3, unreal tournament 2 and unreal 2...by the way I hope that the will finish it or maybe they have to little coffee as Eswift said...?

Reply to RedDaemon"Deus EX and Soldier of Fortune are both UT powered and are great games.."Well Sof is actually Quake 2 based, and not UT, but still, the frikking engine was already over 3 years old when Soldier was released, and take a look at the amazing **** the guys at Activision have done to it, i mean SoF is a kickass game. If 3Drealms do more modifications to the UT engine, which i am personally not very fond of (Q3 is way more powerful and stable), but it still looks nice, then DNF is gonna be the best game of the year.2005 that is

well im sure Duke Nuke "taking" Forever will be a sweet game. the way i see it they are delayin the realease so more ppl get better PC's and videocards b/c at the time the game would not be very popular if most ppl could not even run it

I don't know about any of you, but I have been antipating this game for 3 years now, and if you haven't downloaded the demo -- DO SO, and save yourself the money. They are counting on the Duke name to carry them, because this game SUCKS. It is a glorified Donkey Kong. Not at all the first person perspective we've grown accustomed to, and no multiplayer.

Listen people, how long have we been waiting for this game, to long, the hype and age alone will kill this title and I believe that its well deserved. This game was supposed to have been released a year ago.. its not like the graphics engin will be any good when it finally reach the shops...

Johnny hey i think this game will do ok even thought you say by the time it comes out the ngine will be no good but one main reason WHY it is taking so long to come out is because they took most of the times updating there engine to a more recent one.

I Love the Duke Nukem Series, I played the shareware version of the first two games to death and when Duke Nukem 3D came out I was blown away. I can't wait for forever to see the light of day but at the same time I just hope this delay means that Duke Nukem: Forever will be bug free (Fingers crossed) but either way I don't care BRING ON THE DUKE!!!!But In all seriousness, it isn't necessarily going to be the technology that will win fans over with this game. IT'S DUKE!!!!I just hope 3D realms or who ever is making the game doesn't hold onto it for too long.Think of it like a hand grenade. You start with idea and once you've pulled the pin you've gotta thow it soon or it'll take you out.Does anyone remember how the company Cavedog (Total Anihilation) went down?They built a new game and screwed it up trying to make things "new and Improved"

the first duke 3d engine has still not been beaten for gameplay the speed and gameplay are just out of this world the orginal ran fine on a 486 dx 33 for single player or a 66 for network play making it easily playable on most comps at the time i hope the new game is just a tribute to the original with updated graphics and new fetures and not a lump of **** like unrwal and quake 3 allthough da network vershions are not so bad why dident they make there own engine darn fools wasent that what made it stand out from the crowd b4 looks to me like it will be another quake clone at best clone of harflife duke vs quake no more dat would make a wicked game init

I must first begin by removing the spider webs from this ancient forum topic. It is now close to the new year of 2003 as January is only a few weeks away. If 3DRealms had a viable product close to release they would likely have showed a new demo. But it looks like they just skipped a great selling season and may still either be working on product refinement or are awaiting a more calculated release date to maximize sales. I do have to say that the games I have played since Duke 3d have been awesome but nothing got more playing time against friends than good ol' Duke3d. If the new Duke comes along soon and has similar replayability then they (3DRealms) will have a winner. Since Doom 3 is coming soon it reminds me of 1996 when Quake came out around the time Duke3D did.Quake had better graphics and true 3d modeling but Duke3D had a interactive fun factor that some many games have tried (unsuccessfully) to reproduce. I will check in again in about a year to see how much more dust has collected.

I have now been waiting this game for 5 Years.first time i did hear at new duke nukem will become soon i was so **** glad. but now i have been waiting WHOLE 5 YEARS tihs game... i dont think at it ever will be released.

ok first all i can say is to all the ppl wanting duke nukem forever . i'd maybe think about getting new upgrades for ya comps first cause just look at the detail on them screenshots ??? your looking at needing at least a 2 gig prosesor and about 256 ram and to end it all atleast a graphics card with either 128 or 256 ... just to run the game .... if im wrong then so be but i think im rite ..

this game thosent look nearly as good as half-life 2 doom 3 and halo 2 i think it sorta looks fruity (no offecence to anybody who likes duke nukems) there is not enought detail that was stupid that they were changing engines all the time they should worked more on the detail plot and stripers

Poor 3drealms. Even when Remedy is finally getting ready to release Max Payne 2, 3drealms is still staggering around with DNF even after that retarded April Fool's joke on DNF on Atari. The best way to describe 3drealms and DNF is "the engine is running but no one is behind the wheel." I wouldn't be surprised if this game ends up failing just the way "Prey" did.